Highway 101 Billboard Analysis

Disclaimer: Before you ask, yes I do realize how sad it is that I had the time to do this. It was the combination of a long boring commute, a voice recorder and a little bit of free time at work…

April 12, 2001

The Results

143 ads total

65 high tech companies (45%)

57 traditional businesses (40%)

21 media companies (15%)

Well, the high tech boom is over and the bubble has burst. This has has a dramatic effect on who is advertising in the Bay Area

The most obvious outcome of this is the precipitous fall in the amount of dot-com advertising, while still significant it commands far fewer ads than it did before

The Financial Services, Misc/Retail and TV/Radio companies stepped up to the plate to fill the void left by the dot coms

For the first time we are seeing blank/unsold billboards

This batch is characterized by a lot more companies with more then 1 billboard. Apple just barely held on to its most common advertiser position with CalFed and IBM close behind

There are quite a few more ads than previous times. This is in part because I have started included ads on the electronic boards, plus a few boards that were not exactly on the highway but still visible

I tweaked some of the categories that no longer make sense. Got rid of ‘Travel’ and added ‘Retail’. The retail ads have previously been listed in the misc section